Manufacturing a printed circuit board assembly can be a time-consuming process. A design is created, a bare Printed Circuit Board (PCB) is fabricated, and components are soldered onto the bare PCB, to create a Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA). A PCB refers to a bare PCBA substrate, without any other parts attached to it by soldering or other attachment process. A PCBA refers to a PCB with attached components. A PCBA design can comprise one to thousands of electrical components and one to thousands of electrical traces. A PCBA designer typically will provide a PCBA manufacturer with manufacturing data files, but the manufacturer often is unable to provide an accurate estimate of the amount of time and cost needed to manufacture a batch of PCBAs based on the manufacturing data files alone. For example, typically the manufacturing data files are not optimized or suitable for the manufacturer's fabrication and assembly process, and do not provide the manufacturer with sufficient information to make the PCBA. Instead the manufacturer typically must study the design, run interactive software to analyze the design, and ask the PCBA designer clarifying questions to fully understand the design and the time and cost that will be required to manufacture it. The manufacturer can make assumptions about how the printed circuit board is supposed to be manufactured, but such assumptions can lead to manufacturing errors or holdups, which will increase the amount of time needed to manufacture the PCBA. The manufacturer and the PCBA designer can have a series of communications to clear up any confusion. However, such communications delay the manufacturing process. These manufacturing errors and delays prevent manufacturers from accurately estimating the amount of time and cost needed to manufacture a batch of PCBAs.